Rollbar And Rear Seat Delete Installation - Redecorating

We redesign the front office of our Three-Valve Fox

Pete EppleTechnical Editor

June 5, 2012

Photos By:
Marc Christ

Major steps in a project can be as simple as one or two parts that complete a section of the total build. Firing an engine for the first time, seeing it on its wheels for the first time, or adding the finishing touches to the interior can leave you with an incredible sense of accomplishment--especially when you do the work yourself.

For us and our Three-Valve Fox, one of these milestones came when we added an NHRA-legal (11?4-inch OD, 0.118-inch-thick-wall tubing), six-point bolt-in rollbar from Maximum Motorsports, rear-seat-delete from Shrader Performance, and five-point harnesses from Summit Racing Equipment. Now you may be asking, "What's the big deal with a rear seat delete and a rollbar?" Honestly, when you've been looking at a beat-up, bare floor from behind the front seats for as long as we have, finishing the interior is a dream come true!

Our rollbar came to us as part of the suspension kit from Maximum Motorsports. The six-point, bolt-in bar (PN MMRB-2, $469) features removable swing-out door bars, which make getting in and out of the car a breeze. When you aren't going to the track, the door bars remove easily, and it's like the rollbar isn't there.

Installation is fairly straightforward--the main hoop, rear down tubes, and door bars all bolt to the floor with backing plates to reinforce its mounting position on the floor. Maximum Motorsports makes routing the rear down tube through the interior panels simple by supplying a template tube to easily mark where your holes need to be.

Once the rollbar was in, we shifted our attention to the rear-seat-delete. Shrader Performance has done a great job of engineering these kits to not only look good, but also fit perfectly. The kit comes in four pieces and easily slips into place in the car. Each panel is constructed of precision-bent ABS plastic, layered with factory-color carpet to match the front of the car. Shrader Performance also offers this kit with two storage compartments right behind the driver and passenger seats, but we opted for the kit without.

To tie it all together, we called our friendly parts guys at Summit Racing, who sent us a set of Simpson five-point cam-lock harnesses. Keeping with the grey-and-black theme of our interior, we ordered black belts, which look great on the factory grey seats.

Now that our Three-Valve Fox has some extra safety gear, it's time to make it necessary. We have big things in the works for our street-strip modular Fox, and we'll be going much quicker in the coming months. Stay tuned to see what we have in store!